A Dark Horse in a Field of Republican Obscurity

By MARIA NEWMAN

Published: May 31, 2000

NEWARK, May 30—
When James W. Treffinger was growing up in Maplewood, crucifixes adorned the walls in several rooms of the family home, but in one, a picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was positioned slightly higher than the cross.

Mr. Treffinger, the Essex County executive, grew up in a working-class family loyal to the Roman Catholic Church and the Democratic Party. His father was a factory worker who turned steel ingots into wire. His grandfather was a truck driver.

''We didn't know many Republicans,'' Mr. Treffinger said recently in the mural-lined conference room of his county offices in Newark. ''My family idolized F.D.R. and Truman and John Kennedy. It was a Catholic family, so Kennedy was a double hero.''

But in 1986, Mr. Treffinger switched parties and enrolled as a Republican after years of disillusionment with the Democrats and their fiscal policies, which he believed were irresponsible.

In his race for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in next Tuesday's primary, Mr. Treffinger is facing a problem that echoes his childhood perspective: many voters surveyed say they still do not know much about the four Republicans running. And they know less about Mr. Treffinger than they do about two of the other candidates, State Senator William L. Gormley and Representative Robert D. Franks. The fourth candidate is Murray Sabrin, a Ramapo College professor who once ran for governor as a Libertarian.

To overcome these disadvantages, Mr. Treffinger is banking on his working-class roots, his record in government, his political base in Essex County and his vision of a Republican Party that is fiscally conservative but socially inclusive.

Breaking out of the pack will be tough, however, for Mr. Treffinger, 50, a former Wall Street lawyer and mayor of the township of Verona with little exposure on the state political scene and a modest campaign war chest.

Mr. Gormley, who has raised $2.4 million so far, and Mr. Franks, who has raised $1.6 million, are widely considered to be the two front-runners. But Mr. Treffinger believes that in spite of his smaller reserve of campaign funds (he has raised about $1.2 million), he can make an impression with sheer doggedness. He shows up every weekday morning at work an hour or two early, so that he can spend his evenings making seven or more campaign appearances throughout the state. On weekends, he sometimes makes more than a dozen campaign stops a day.

''The bad news for all of us is that over 70 percent of Republican primary voters don't know any of us,'' he said. ''But the good news for me is that over 70 percent of the likely voters don't know any of us, so I have an opportunity to become known.''

He is crisscrossing the state every day, delivering his message of what he calls populist conservatism while wagging his thick head of hair and speaking in a soft-voiced cadence reminiscent of Ronald Reagan. ''My limit is five people,'' he said of the sometimes small crowds he draws, ''because maybe they can go out and talk to five more people about me.''

Mr. Treffinger will benefit from having his base in northern New Jersey, the most populous part of the state. He was an Essex County freeholder before he was elected executive in 1995, and has since built a reputation for turning around the fiscally troubled county. Just before he took over, the county was facing a $161 million deficit. In his office, he found desk drawers stuffed with unpaid bills. Revenues for the previous year had been overestimated by more than $35 million. Mr. Treffinger's predecessor, Thomas J. D'Alessio, was later convicted and imprisoned for money laundering, fraud and extortion.

In one year, Mr. Treffinger nearly closed the budget gap, by selling county assets, making severe personnel cuts and engaging in what some called sleight-of-hand debt juggling. But he did it without proposing property tax increases. His actions impressed Wall Street analysts, who raised the county's bond rating. Just as important to Republican Party leaders, he managed to get elected twice in a heavily Democratic county, the state's second most populous.

In addition to Essex County, Mr. Treffinger is counting on strong support from Passaic and Hudson Counties on Primary Day, and has been spending a lot of time in Morris and Monmouth Counties, all densely populated counties whose votes could tip the balance in his favor.

But he will be limited by the amount of money he has to spend. Mr. Treffinger said he probably would not be able to afford advertising on network television, an expensive proposition in New Jersey because voters live in the radius of either the New York City stations or the Philadelphia stations, two of the more costly television markets. So he is relying on cable television, radio and direct mailings.

Chuck Haytaian, the state Republican Party chairman, acknowledges that Mr. Gormley and Mr. Franks have some clear advantages over the other two candidates. Nevertheless, he said, Mr. Treffinger should be taken seriously. ''I wouldn't take Jim Treffinger for granted,'' Mr. Haytaian said. ''He's running a good campaign and he's had two good wins in Essex County.''